New Carlton AFLW coach Daniel Harford has fallen in love with women’s football

CARLTON AFLW coach Daniel Harford has fallen in love with women’s football and has no ambition to coach the men’s game. He instead wants to thrive in his new role and transform the Blues into the best team in the competition.

FORMER Hawthorn midfielder Daniel Harford says he does not harbour any ambitions to coach men’s football at the top level as he takes the reins of Carlton’s women’s team.

Instead, the former Hawthorn star predicts AFLW will become “a beast” within five years.

Harford said he had instead fallen in love with the women’s game and wanted to be “part of the movement”.

He said he loved every second as an assistant with Collingwood’s AFLW team last season after coaching senior men’s football for a decade with VAFA side St Kevin’s and Eastern Football League outfit Balwyn.

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New Carlton AFLW head coach Daniel Harford at Ikon Park. Picture: Jay Town

“The AFL system’s all-consuming and I quite like my lifestyle at the moment,” Harford said.

“I get to see my family, I get to talk a bit of rubbish on (RSN) radio every day and I get to coach and itch that scratch as well.

“It’s a great mix of my loves and passions and at this stage I don’t think I’ll be doing anything else.

“What I love about the girls is they just want to learn. They’re sponges and everything you say they’ll listen to.

“There’s not a lot of egos here and they just want to get better and that’s the attraction of the whole competition.”

Harford, 41, who played 162 AFL games for Hawthorn and Carlton, said his coaching motto was “do the easy thing often and well”.

Carlton’s AFLW coaching panel for the 2019 season (from L-R): Shannon McFerran, Steven Salopek, senior coach Daniel Harford and Brad Fisher. Picture: Jay Town

He vowed to lift Carlton’s scoring next season after the side averaged just three goals a game during a two-win 2018 campaign in which “everything that could go wrong did”.

Former Blue Brad Fisher and ex-Port Adelaide star Steven Salopek have joined Harford as assistants along with Shannon McFerran, who coached Collingwood’s VFLW side this year.

The return of captain Bri Davey from an ACL injury is set to boost the Blues in 2019, but Harford said he expected the whole competition to take a giant leap forward.

“I would suggest within five years the whole product, the level of play, the expectation from fans but also from players … it’s going to go through the roof,” Harford said.

Carlton begins pre-season training on Wednesday, with its first game against North Melbourne on Sunday, February 3.